Word: menus
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...nascent but enthusiastic neophyte in Latin scholarship, found my studies rewarded as I read your article, "Edibility Gap" [Dec. 6]. Included in your photo of ostentatious restaurant menus was one of obvious Roman vintage touting the gustatory delights of a New York establishment with acute illusions of classical grandeur. Atop the menu, in flawless (if somewhat perfunctory) Latin, were the words of the poet Catullus: "You will dine well at my table." Whereas the rest of the menu appears hopelessly verbose, its author was here perhaps all too brief, for, loosely translated, Catullus actually wrote: "You will dine well...
Clarence Hewes, head of Chicago's Bell Printing Co., whose presses churn out menus for 160 restaurants per day, has another theory. He blames the shortage of skilled, versatile chefs and the rising cost of food, which have forced restaurants everywhere to shorten their menus. "The less you offer, the more you have to say about it," says Hewes. Mon Petit, a restaurant in Chicago, devotes a three-line historical note to Chateaubriand beneath the dish named after the 19th century French statesman...
...menu should not merely list food," says Denis O'Sullivan, a vice president of the New York printing firm of B. R. Doerfler, which turns out menus for 625 different restaurants. "It should be a front-line salesman." Bold typography, two-color art work, odd shapes (a coffee mug, the state of Texas), and archaic or arcane spellings ("Chef's Sallet," "Stake wyth Asparagus," "Colde Lobfter") all provoke the diner's eye into paying attention to the day's specials. The most honest and sardonic sell of all is practiced by the Brookline, Mass., delicatessen...
...writes menus? Mainly the restaurateurs or their chefs, but sometimes the printing companies lend an inky hand. "We do the job," says, Jack Loftin of the Dallas printing firm of Menus Distinctive. "There's nothing to be ashamed about." Unashamed, a small band of professional writers hangs around the kitchen door. One freelancer, Barry Tarshis, who dubs himself the "Menu Surgeon," says: "A menu should relate logically to the restaurant. A whimsical menu for the hip crowd, for example, or a folksy menu for the family crowd. But if someone wants something really offbeat, I might even suggest...
...Fancy menus just gild the lily. Presentation of food, not descriptive phrases, is what is necessary." Nonetheless, beware the chef's signature. A restaurant in New York's Greenwich Village offers Spaghetti Alfredo, which turns out to have nothing to do with the restaurant of the same name in Rome. In stead, as the menu footnotes, it is "Spaghetti-Freddy style." Gallatin Powers, owner of Gallatin's restaurant in Monterey, Calif:, explains the genesis of the chicken, orange juice, and ginger concoction he calls Poulet Albert simply: "I have a son named Albert...